The Pulpit Commentary — Hebrews — Section 356

provide f'or the wishes of the heart. But he rises above the indiviJual nnd the present. As he advances in obedience, the aims of God, the possibilities of his own life, the needs of all his posterity, rise more distinctly before his mind. For himself and his children, and all the families of the earth that are to be blessed in him, he looks for somethin.:r better than a land to live in for a few years and then be buried in. '!'here is a corre': spondence which cannot fail to be noted between what the writer of the Epistle says here concerning the tent and the city of foundations, and what Paul says (2 Cor. v. 1) concerning the tent and the eternal, heavenly building of God. IV. PATIENCE HAVING ITS PERFECT woRK. He discerned that the city which was to have foundations worth calling foundations must come, not from the wisdom and power of men, but from the planning and fabricating of God. And foundation-work of this kind went on very slowly, according to human computation. The great thing to be remembered is that the foundation of this city of God lies outside the limits of the seen and the temporal. The city of God is to be looked at in a similar way to the rest provided for God's people already spoken of (eh. iv.). There remaineth a city which hath foundations, a house of God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Waiting i11 our great duty, rejoicing in the present indwelling of God's Spirit as the earnest, and knowing that the fulness will come in its own order.-Y. Vers. 13-16.-The two fatherlands. L THAT FROM wmcH THEY HAD COME. The writer or this Epistle ha.s been a student of the recorded experiences and habitual feelings of his devout ancestors. Many of the descendants of Abraham had no devoutness in them. They cared nothing where they lived so long as they could get gain and their fill of the pleasures of life. Such were really not reckoned in the ex:ceeding multitucle at all. They that are of faith are the children of faithful Abraham. And few as they were probably out of the bulk of Abraham's descendants according to the flesh, nevertheless they may have been a great number, more than we have any idea of. 'l'he Lord's people, though far from being as many as they ought to be, are yet more numerous than we think. Remember Elijah's ignorance of the seven thousand who had not bowed to Baal. Such people must ever express their longings for something far beyond what any earthly locality can supply. And as the writer says, these longings are ever expressed in the spirit of faith. Looking away from earth, and from self, and from the present, they see what an abundance of promises is theirs. They dwell in Canaan as strangers aud sojourners dwell in a land. They pass through it as seeking something which they do not expect to find in it. It is part of the necessary way; it docs not contain the journey's eud. All travellers have a choice; they can press forward into the unknown or they can go back. Israelites might.have sought the home of Abraharn, on the possibility that there might be found a peace and satisfaction not to be found in Canaan. There is something in the power of fatherland. Englishmen will go to live abroad for many years, but they like to come back for the last chapter of life. We all know the popular belief that people out of health may benefit by going to their native air. II. THE HEAVENLY FATHERLAND. Our Father in heaven makes in heaven the satisrying provisiou for his children. All the meanin~ of the passage here is only to be apprehended by bearing in mind the fatherhood of God. Spiritual relations are more than natural ones; heaveuly relations than earthly ones. Abraham left the land of his fathers because only by doing so could the seeds of a new, a better condition of thinO's be sown. And then little by little it must have become clear that outward chan°ge was to make clear the need of something more-individual, inward change. Spiritual aspiratioD:s, stron~ly expressed be~use they ar~ de~ply felt, draw forth Gud's response of special mterest 1n those who cherish such asp1rat10ns. God holds forth the heavenly land, the land of his full manifestation and his unobscured glory, before all believers. Prophecy is full of that which encourages faith in this respect. As to the nature of the heaveuly state, the Lord's true people may have been in much iguorance; but as to the satisfying reality of it they were fully assured. God never asks for faith without giving something corresponding to cheer his people, to lift them above the attractiuns, the delusions, and the kmptat1ons of the prcseut.-Y. Vera. 17-19.-.Abraham'sfaith in offering lsa,ac, Thi.a is to be considered here IM! 011. XI. 1-40.J 'fHE, EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. a49